Scan 61
Georg Gemünder's Progress In Violin Making 1881, 1881
8 lines. Read by computer on 19 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1finishing and arrangement (Aptirung), and obtained a violin, which, although every judge knew it to be a trade instrument, was not inferior in tone to an Italian one; and for which the concert-director at Fulda gave me forty dollars. This led me to imagine that constant vibration shakes the resinous particles out of the wood, thereby rendering it more porous and better adapted for producing a good tone, than it otherwise is. I therefore made the experiment with the continual sounding of two notes forming an interval of a fifth, to ascertain whether it would improve them; and in the course of an hour I found they were much less rough and metallic in tone, than any others on the violin.
3Having now discovered that, by sounding two notes at once with a powerful stroke of the bow, greater vibration was produced in the instrument, I further tried it by fourths throughout the scale. In this instance, also, every note equally experienced the desired improvement, and the keys of A flat major and C major became as good as those of D or G major.* I forbear to state the reason of this, from a
5* The Author still advocates the method here referred to for bringing out the tone, in the 1828 edition of his book; but instead of describing the machine mentioned at p. 47, he says: "Whoever attempts to bring out the tone of a new violin in this way, must first provide himself with a rather strong bow of pear-tree wood, the head and nut of which must be two inches high from the stick, and the hair be screwed rather tighter than a violoncello bow. He must also have a piece of silk cord, two or three ells long and as thick as a violoncello D string. After stringing the violin in a suitable manner and tuning it to concert pitch, he must stick a strip of white paper, four inches long and one broad, on the finger-board, beginning close against the nut, and draw lines on it corresponding very exactly to the places of the notes B flat, B, C, C sharp, D, and D sharp of the A string. The violin must always be kept strictly to the same pitch, which must be tested by a tuning fork."
7"The instrument is now to be taken between the knees, and the
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